front end problems on my 1st gen tundra

so i have a 2001 tundra that has a descent amount of play in the front end. i can move the tires side to side when i have the front jacked up. That's the 3 and 9 clock and no movement at 6 & 12.

i have already replaced the inner and outer tie rods, and the bearing and hubs. and ive had the upper and lower control arms replaced recently along with the rack and pinion. (note)after i fixed bearing i noticed that the new rack was super loose. so i tightened it all back up and did the tie rods next.

also i put in a new swaybar. But it still has the same 3 to 9 play. im at a loss! any ideas. Anythings appreciated
.
truck has 5" tuff country lift with 1" wheel spacers and after market tires and rims. and it has semi new old man emu shocks. it has a little over 200k just fyi. im not sure any of the will help u guys.

thanks for ur time.

 

Wait .... Side to side movement at 3/9 but nothing 6/12 when BOTH tires are jacked up, or only one is jacked up?

 

I don't mean to ask a stupid question, but we've all made mistakes like this so I'll ask. Is it just the tires steering normally when you have both off the ground?

 

@mechanicaly$

 

@mechanicaly$ Yeah, if the tires are off the ground, you can easily push the tires 3 and 9 and get movement due to the steering being pushed one way then the other. Try to quickly move the tire instead of just pushing it to find play in balljoints. Also give it a whirl at 2 and 8 o'clock positions and tell us what you get there.

 

So there is play at 2 and 8 as well as 3and 9 but no play at 6 n 12 that’s when both tires are Jack up off the ground.

 

And no it’s not normal. it’s a good amount of movement. Also when I’m driving it’ll every so often shift kinda like I was on ice and I lost traction only not so severe! I heard it could be bad rack bushings I know my sway bar bushings a shot. I’m doing that tomorrow!

 

Have you replaced ball joints as well?

 

LBJs only use OEM. No aftermarket ball joints unless you want failure and possible rollover accident.

 

ya i had both tires come off already on me because of the lower ball joints. once on top of about 8ft of snow. i was driving on the frozen over snow cat tracks on my way home and tire got wedged in a rut and when i went to turn and gave it gas it decided to fail. that was fun. the other was on an on ramp thankfully so i was only going 15 -20 mph still cost me about 3k to get that fixed. so unless those go bad within 30k those were done as well. i changed the the bushings On my rack and pinion the other night. So I'm just about to go And reconnect the tire rods. So hopefully that fixed it but we'll see. I'll let ya know if i have any luck. if this doesn't work the ball joint is really the only thing left. lol.

 

Mine did this. Put your phone in front of the truck on video and steer back and forth. If the rack moves before the tires move, pull the rack bolts and put in new steering rack bushings. I used the two piece whiteline bushings and it was like a whole new truck.

 

If you didn't use OEM yeah it is possible for them to fail that soon.

 

Yup. Aftermarket are only designed to last 1/3 as long. that's why the f'n parts cost 1/2 as much. If you want longevity, you gotta pay all $150/ea up front to do the job once versus paying $70/ea three times and doing the job thrice. You're actually paying more NOT buying OEM in a lot of cases, and you're damn sure putting in way more work.

It's the one thing I often shake my head at with folks. They want to bitch and complain about OEM pricing, but if the f'n OEM part you're pulling lasted you 15-20 years, how can you say buying OEM isn't worth the money? Aftermarket parts absolutely DO NOT last that long. They never have. They're inferior quality in many cases. If they weren't, they wouldn't be that cheap.

(I know, there are always corner cases, exceptions to the rule, but ... 9 times out of 10 what I'm saying is hard fact)

 

Obligatory video to show why OEM lasts as long, and non-OEM doesn't these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQWwTB8w2Hk​

 

Interestingly I just had a similar complaint / symptom on my truck. Steering wandered a little and felt like it lacked a true center. Like driving a solid axle vehicle with a loose steering box gear. Turn in felt lazy and then it would sort of slip with a big dead spot. Turns out my steering rack bushing was non-existent. I put poly in about 40k miles ago and it had failed. Had to make an emergency run to the LAPS to replace.

 

what brand poly bushings were the ones that failed?

 

I’ll have to dig deep into the archives and see if I can find it.

 

These are the ones I went with most recently

 

These. Urethane Dorman replacements. Updated the hall of shame thread as well. Booooo

 

I have the Energy Suspension kit in a cart and have for about 2 years now.I guess I need to pull the trigger on that eventually.

 

I used Whiteline on my 1st gen and my 100 series. I will say that longevity wise nothing is going to come close to OEM rubber. But the Poly takes under an hour to install with power tools after you've converted over to them, and they are much more responsive than having rubber.

With a lift, bigger tires, etc. it was common to have to do these more often whether OEM rubber or Poly. I believe I did the whiteline bushings around when I would be doing wheel bearing grease and/or swapping diff/t case fluids. So about every 30-50k.

 

I've used Whiteline chassis bushings and inserts on my Subaru STI and they've held up pretty well so I may go that route when it comes time for replacement.

 

What size tires and offset wheels. 5” lift, wheel spacers, probably aftermarket steering components. That’s probably your issue. What are the Coilovers set to.

The Steering components on these trucks are incredible small, like smaller than 2nd gen Tacoma’s.